Fragmented and Fluid Mobilities: The Role of Onward Migration in the New Map of Europe and the Balkans

Sa？etak This paper directs attention to examining migration beyond the conventional bipolar model of origin-destination. It does so at two levels: conceptual and empirical. Conceptually, it reviews recent trends to see migration as a more complex and diverse space-time process. Spatially, and especially within Europe, migration increasingly manifests itself in a variety of trajectories and pathways, which mix internal with international moves, transit migration, onward migration, and back-and-forth moves. Temporally, a range of mobility forms, including return visits and cross-border shuttling, may be enfolded within longer-term migrations. Moving more specifically to onward migration, a series of examples is then reviewed, based on case-studies in the literature. In the final part of the article the authors present results from their recent study of the onward migration of Albanians from Greece to the UK. Based on 10 in-depth interviews with onward-migrated Albanians in London and Brighton, their reasons for leaving Greece, where they had been more-or-less successfully settled, are interrogated. They left because of the negative impact of the Greek economic crisis on their livelihoods, and because their acquisition of Greek citizenship gave them the freedom to move. Given their reluctance to return to Albania, which offers them few opportunities to advance their lives, they saw the UK as the best option, although the spectre of Brexit disturbs this certainty. Interview data are also included on their memories of pre-migration life in Albania, and their impressions of their resettled lives in England